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Faith, reason and the human mind – love triangle or ménage à trois?

A study and comparison of the philosophical approaches of Søren Kierkegaard and Richard Swinburne towards religious faith

Kim Dennis Sire Seljom Master thesis in Philosophy

Credits: 60

Master's Program in Philosophy University of Oslo

Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas

Spring 2020

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my supervisor professor Torstein Tollefsen for his kindness and patience in his reviews of my text and during our conversations at his office. Professor Tollefsen was my supervisor from spring 2018 until spring/early summer 2020. We have communicated in face-to-face meetings and by mails. I would also like to thank my friends and family who has supported and encouraged my endeavours during these past two years.

Mistakes and errors in the following master thesis and paper are mine and mine alone. A particular thanks to my parents who, aside from being loving and supportive, this paper would, for basic and natural reasons, never have been made.

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Summary

This paper is about religious faith, and how philosophy should approach the topic. As a starting point, I will assume that religious faith is a good thing, and that philosophy can help enlighten how religious faith ought to be practiced, and more important, what kind of action faith is. I shall be working with two main philosophers, though I will frequently quote other thinkers and works, where I judge that beneficial. The two philosophers and main characters in this text is Søren Kierkegaard and Richard Swinburne. The two of them share a strong Christian faith, which validity or invalidity is not the subject of this paper. Rather, it is the question of how philosophy ought to approach religious faith, they fundamentally disagree.

Swinburne insist that religion, in his case primarily Christianity, can and should be subjected to rigorous scrutiny and critical analysis, the same way one would approach any other philosophical problem or even scientific discovery. In doing so, you will come to see that Christianity is objectively true. Swinburne aims to prove that Christianity as a religion is probably true. Kierkegaard firmly dismiss all talk about any objective standards in faith. Faith is, according to him, inherently a subjective undertaking of the most intimate and personal sort. Faith is not a scientific or logical compulsion, rather it is an ethical choice, made when freeing oneself from despair and in the face of terrible anxiety. I have gone through each of their defences for religious faith, tried to sum up the most crucial aspects and given a

description of their reasoning.

In the end, I have endeavoured to discuss and contemplate Swinburne and Kierkegaard alike, praising what I find praiseworthy, and criticising where I disagree, and of course, explain how I myself think. I have primarily criticised Swinburne for neglecting the

importance of subjective devotion and passion in his apologetics. Kierkegaard I criticise for his refusal to seek God outside of the human psyche and I discuss how I think a changing context in time and environment creates further difficulties for his religious approach. In the end I have concluded that both Swinburne and Kierkegaard have important and valid points, though in the end it is my subjective opinion do think that Kierkegaard is the one that has best understood what religious faith is, or at least ought to be.

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Table of contents

1 Chapter 1 – Introduction ... 7

1.1 Topic ... 7

1.2 Question ... 8

1.3 Thesis statement ... 9

1.4 Methodology ... 9

1.5 Fideism and epistemic heroism ... 12

2 Chapter 2 – Presenting thinkers and types of thinking... 14

2.1 Kierkegaard's poetry and the sick soul ... 14

Why faith? ... 15

Faith as a stage in life ... 17

2.2 Swinburne’s divine hypothesis ... 21

2.3 Working towards God through reason ... 24

A coherent faith ... 25

A reasonable faith ... 26

Was Jesus God? ... 31

2.4 Natural theology and apologetics ... 33

2.5 Intelligent faith ... 35

3 Chapter 3 – True faith ... 39

3.1 Objective and subjective truth ... 39

The Thomist view of faith ... 43

The Lutheran view of faith ... 45

The Pragmatist view of faith ... 47

3.2 A revised pragmatism ... 51

3.3 Faith through or beyond reason? ... 53

3.4 Apologetics = Approximations ... 54

4 Chapter 4 – Positive and negative apologetics ... 57

4.1 Positive apologetics ... 58

4.2 Negative, or cultural, apologetics ... 58

4.3 Faith as your best bet ... 60

5 Chapter 5 – Moral implications ... 62

5.1 God reveals himself to us through what is moral ... 62

5.2 When the religious trumps the ethical ... 63

6 Chapter 6 – Problematic aspects ... 68

6.1 Two different approaches, from two different backgrounds ... 68

6.2 God as an unassailable construction ... 71

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6.3 In defence of approximations ... 74

6.4 The problem of conditional love ... 78

6.5 When the natural and the revealed comes into conflict ... 82

6.6 Just how necessary is having the correct faith? ... 83

6.7 Swinburne's motivation ... 86

6.8 Is God external or internal? ... 87

7 Chapter 7 – Looking for a synthesis, of some sort ... 92

7.1 A (somewhere in the) middle ground? ... 99

8 Chapter 8 – Conclusions ... 102

9 – Bibliography ... 108

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Well-justified conclusions about religious faith can only be reached through a thorough understanding of what constitutes rational belief and rational action. The road may be dry and secular, but we shall reach our destination in the end.1

- Richard Swinburne

Thi Troen resulterer ikke af en ligefrem videnskabelig Overveielse, og heller ikke ligefrem, tvertimod taber man i denne Objektivitet den uendelige personlige i Lidenskab

Interesserethed, hvilken er Troens Betingelse, det ubique et nusquam, hvori Troen kan blive til. Har Den, somn havde Troen, vundet Noget i Henseende til Troens Kraft og Styrke? Nei, ikke det Allermindste, snarere er han i denne vidtløftige Viden, i denne Vished, der ligger ved Troens Dør og begjerer efter den, saa farefuldt stillet, at den vil behøve megen

Anstrængelse, megen Frygt og Bæven for ikke at falde i Anfægtelsen, og forvexle Viden med Tro.2

- Søren Kierkegaard

1 Chapter 1 – Introduction

1.1 Topic

What is religious philosophy, and how should it be thought of? While there are some debate about which discipline first entered the human psyche, philosophy or theology, both are at any rate extremely old, and concerns questions humans have had about their own

existence, and the existence of the world around them, for as long as there have been humans. Questions that have given birth to both religion and philosophy, and oftentimes a mixture of the two. What kind of relationship there exist between religious faith, and philosophy, is then an important and pressing question, almost no matter how you feel about the former or the latter. Naturally, I can have no hope of dealing with the subject in its entirety, but I can study two prominent philosophers within theistic philosophy, and that is what I have done. These two would Søren Kierkegaard and Richard Swinburne, two famous and prominent philosophers that both have had substantial influence on how philosophers and philosophy has approached religion in the modern era. In my master thesis, I wish to focus on the topic of religious philosophy. To be more precise, it is my wish to explore the concept of “faith” and its relationship to reason/rationality. With faith in this

1Swinburne, Was Jesus God? (Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 3

2 Kierkegaard, Avsluttende uvitenskapelig etterskrift (Oslo: Pax Forlag A/S, 1994), 43

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regard I think specifically on religious faith, and how this may coexist with the reason-based approach that should guide philosophy. Is it possible for religious faith to exist alongside a rational approach, and can this co-existence be somewhat mutually beneficial? Or do their conflicting natures necessitate an intellectual and emotional separation? Is there a

possibility that the two attitudes can strengthen and enhance each other? Or will their different natures and meanings inevitably lead into conflict, or else necessitate some form of mental separation? Most atheist or irreligious would probably support the former;

according to those views, faith is a contrast, perhaps even an enemy, of reason. However, it is not those that I wish to focus on the limited space and page numbers I have available. I will instead focus on philosophers whose starting position is arguing that faith is somehow beneficial for us. Within religious philosophy, the relationship between faith and reason is not a clear one, nor does there exist any unanimous position on the subject within religious philosophy/religious philosophers. In this paper it is therefore my intention to present two conflicting viewpoints, namely Swinburne’s and Kierkegaard’s, on the question of how to best obtain good religious faith through philosophy, I will then argue their strengths and merits, as well as their flaws and weaknesses, so far as this is possible, and in the end try to create a sort of synthesis.

1.2 Question

At the centre of this paper, I will work with, and discuss, the workings of two philosophers with considerable contributions within the field of religious philosophy. These are Søren Kierkegaard and Richard Swinburne. Their works will not be my only sources, nor will the two of them the only thinkers I will be referring two, but I shall endeavour to make them my focus points.

I do not think it is necessary to defend the claim that to have religious faith, at least in the Western world of the past century or so, has become an increasingly controversial topic. But it is not my goal or interest here to explore this development, at least nor primarily. I do think contexts affects the writings of the two philosophers that are my primary focus, and I will discuss that, to some extent. Nor do I wish to debate the existence of God/gods/divinity, or their possible nature. Instead, I will try to see how belief in these may correlate with philosophical endeavours. How can we balance philosophy with religious faith? Is there a contradiction between reason, that ultimately seeks to explain everything, and faith, that

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tells us to accept some things and phenomena that we cannot fully understand or prove?

Or can reason indeed give us ground to support (religious) faith? While it is not my intention to debate God’s nature, I have, for the sake of brevity and simplicity, selected a specific approach and type of faith that I will work with, or at least use as my primary source of references when referring to “God”: the Abrahamic model of a singular, omnipotent, omnipresent, omnibenevolent, omniscient and personalised being. This is the Christian, but also Jewish and Islamic, view of God. Said being also interacts on a personal level with at least some humans, in the form of revelations. I believe that this should be sufficient to cover the question I wish to explore. And of course, since both Kierkegaard and Swinburne are Christians, that is the theistic concept they work with and within as well.

1.3 Thesis statement

In this paper it is my intention to make the case for the idea that philosophy as a discipline need not and should not separate itself from and disregard the concept of religious faith. It is my belief, and subsequently the claim of this thesis, that religious faith does and can significantly contribute to the understanding of various philosophical topics, not only those exclusively concerning themselves with specific religious endeavours, but also regarding ethics, metaphysics and epistemology in general. It is however the epistemological aspect I wish to focus on in this paper, especially how philosophers of religion have tried to confront and justify religious faith. In this paper, I wish to present to opposing viewpoints in this matter, made by two Christian philosophers, whom may have shared religion, though certainly not their philosophical outlook on it. These are the eighteenth-century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, and the present age British philosopher Richard Swinburne.

These two will be my main focus, though I do also wish to bring up several other names, where I find that convenient for explaining, clarify and nuance the opposing views on faith’s relationship to rationality.

1.4 Methodology

It seems natural to start by clarifying what is commonly meant by “faith” and “reason” since the two terms are so important themes in my thesis. At the very least, I must clarify what I here mean by these words. Both words are after all common and rather vague and

ambiguous in meaning.

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With “faith” I shall refer to the state and/or action of having great trust and confidence in something or someone, without sufficient evidence to talk about knowledge. In a religious setting, this naturally refers to having strong belief in something divine, like God. Yet I shall endeavour to keep God as much as possible out of this project, though I certainly cannot escape frequently mentioning the concept. However, it is those who believe in Him, while also in one way or another believing in the value of philosophy, that first and foremost interests me. Closely related, but less specific, than the concept of "faith" is the word

"belief". Simply put, belief means to deem it plausible that something exists or is true, without having iron-clad evidence that it is true. There is nothing specifically religious about belief, naturally, but there can be no religious faith or religion without a group of beliefs, that are supposed to be inherently coherent. In the case of (orthodox) Christianity, one is required to believe that Jesus was the Son of God, died for our sins, was resurrected and descended up into heaven, and that the rest of mankind may be saved by believing in him.

Each and one of these beliefs alone are quite a slim foundation for a faith, but together, they make it possible to establish a system of beliefs that together, when accepted as true, make it possible to form a religion, which is the basic requirement for having religious faith.

Since faith is built upon beliefs, not certainties, it follows that any faith also makes itself vulnerable to external scepticism and internal doubt. In the end, how to overcome these challenges is what this paper is about.

As for “reason”, we can define this as the cause of an event or situation or something which provides an explanation; though it is also the ability of a healthy mind to think and make judgements, especially based on testable facts. Closely connected to reason is the term

“rational”, that is, the ability to, and/or action of, showing clear thought and reason. For both terms, complete objectivity is the ideal when making decisions, we are to draw our conclusions from what logic and facts tells us, whether we like the eventual outcome or not.

Naturally, there is always a subjective agent that makes these supposedly objective

decisions, but the ideal is to suppress this as much as possible. However, we can also think it perfectly acceptable, perhaps even necessary, to make subjective rational choices to a subjective goal. Reason then becomes a means to an end, and this end may perfectly well be highly personal and idiosyncratic, or subjective. Any machine would do to illustrate this, putting them together is hopefully a rational endeavour, the goal of the construction is the

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highest possible level of efficiency, the purpose of the machine to create some sort of subjective pleasure for someone or something.

When planning this thesis, exploring Kierkegaard's religious beliefs was one of my first starting points. Kierkegaard was the father, or at least an extremely important precursor, of the philosophical theory/movement of existentialism, and his writings on the human

psyche, free will, despair and the finite versus infinity have ensured him a place amongst human history's greatest and most prominent philosophers. I have for a long time been fascinated with Kierkegaard's unique interpretation of the Christian faith, and his approach towards religious faith in particular. Kierkegaard is notable for dismissing and attacking the idea that true faith needs to be, should be, or even could be, defended by rational

argumentation. Faith is, in some sense at least, inherently different or separated from

reason and objective criteria.

In order to best explore and explain Kierkegaard's religious stance, I decided, in accordance with my mentor, to contrast Kierkegaard's view of faith with another Christian philosopher,

whose view and approach are distinctly different from Kierkegaard's.

The choice of Swinburne as Kierkegaard’s opponent in my projects is somewhat coincidental, as I do believe that there is a considerable number of present-day

theistic/Christian philosophers, like C.S. Lewis, Alvin Plantinga, William Lane Craig and John Lennox, that could also be used to argue for the same overall viewpoint: reason can and should play a role when we commit ourselves to faith. That is not to say that there are no philosophical and theological differences between these thinkers, there are and they are sometimes substantial. But I still feel confident in saying that they all heavily apply reason when defending and promulgating their versions of Christian faith. Nonetheless, I am confident that Richard Swinburne has also earned his place among them. And admittedly, his rather rigorous adherence to evidentialism and objective criteria makes him a clear-cut foil to Kierkegaard.

While Swinburne is a proud analytic philosopher, Kierkegaard is a philosopher of the more continental mould . It is notable that analytical philosophy seems popular with the famous Christian apologists of today, with some of the most prominent men in the field like William Lane Craig, John Lennox and Alvin Plantinga all being identified as a part of the discipline.

Analytic philosophy relies heavily on logic, and treats philosophical projects and themes as a

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collective undertaking, with a direct or indirect cooperation between philosophers that rely on each other's reasoning and ideas, sometimes agreeing with each other, sometimes

modifying and adapting ideas, and again sometimes rejecting ideas as logically unsound.

By contrast, it is undoubtedly so that Kierkegaard follows the continental, perhaps the more traditional, approach in treating philosophy as an individual project, worked out and done by men in solitude. And indeed, the ultimate isolation of the individual is an important element of Kierkegaard's thinking.

While Kierkegaard and Swinburne are my main focus, I have during this work also used/consulted other philosophers and their works where I have deemed that useful in understanding and expanding on relevant philosophical topics and terms. While Swinburne and Kierkegaard are my main focus, it is also true that they are representatives for larger discourses, in that the question of how to approach and treat religious faith in a

philosophical context is an old question, and one that is still fiercely debated. That is not to say that there is not a fundamental difference between them or their thinking, however.

Kierkegaard’s Christianity is an explicit rejection of objective truths as a guiding light

towards God, Swinburne sees objective truth as the essential tool we have in attempting to comprehend God. This means that their starting points are rather different, and we can categorize it as fideism, where we can find Kierkegaard, and epistemic heroism, where Richard Swinburne may be placed. We shall briefly consider the meaning and implications of said terms.

1.5 Fideism and epistemic heroism

"What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem?" Tertullian's question, asked in the third century, questions what, reason (Athens) and Jerusalem (the Christian faith), may and ought to have with one another.3 Kierkegaard's position, probably much like Tertullian, is that they are two separate realms, and that the rules that apply to the one cannot be assumed to apply to the other. This makes Kierkegaard a fideist. Tertullian is usually credited with being the first of the important Christian fideists, later great names in Christian fideism are Blaise Pascal, William James and Ludwig Wittgenstein, and of course Søren Kierkegaard himself.4

3 Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, s.v. "Fideism", Richard Amesbury, 19.04.2020 URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2017/entries/fideism/>.

4 Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, s.v. "Fideism", Richard Amesbury, 19.04.2020 URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2017/entries/fideism/>.

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Those that tries to understand or approach faith by reason has misunderstood the nature of faith, and probably the nature of reason too. It is important to remember that this does not entail that Kierkegaard dismiss reason altogether, far from it. Also Athens has much too teach us, and one of Kierkegaard's greatest heroes is Socrates. But Christianity, or at least true Christianity, is not science, it is not philosophy and it is not a political ideology. It is fundamentally otherworldly, in that its purpose is to help humans bridge the gap between our own limited reasoning, and God, whose knowledge and wisdoms transcends all human understanding. For humans to try to comprehend God as they would a mathematical problem or an ethical dilemma is not only an insult towards God, but also inherently ridiculous. Why should we have any right to expect Christianity to make sense to us rationally?

Epistemic heroism insists that not only are there no genuine tension between true faith and human rationality, but that they in fact corroborate one another. Religious beliefs can be proven, by epistemic means, to be perfectly rational and objectively compelling: so that anyone objectively assessing the epistemic evidence will also accept the conclusion that a certain religious faith is true or false. In its most radical form, epistemic heroism claims that there are a priori evidence(s) for the existence of God, that is, evidence that can be

accepted without experience, or at least that there are a priori considerations that makes it likely that God exists. Swinburne believes it to be possible to at least make it logically probable that Christianity is true, based on a priori argumentation alone.5 That may be part of why he puts relatively little emphasis upon what might be described more as a posteriori argumentation: for example that God must exist because objective morals do exist, or because historical evidence makes it probable that Jesus was the Son of God. Swinburne disbelieves the former, as we will consider more in depth later on. As for the historical dimension, Swinburne do consider the gospels to be overall at least quite historically

reliable, though he shows relatively little interest in the subject.6 (Something he shares with Kierkegaard, who more or less dismiss all historical research of Christ and Christianity.) There are however many apologists who puts great importance on the historicity of the

5 Swinburne, "Why Believe That There Is a God?", p. 5-6

6 That is not to say that he altogether dismisses it. In Was Jesus God?, for example, Swinburne frequently discuss the historicity of Jesus, particularly in chapter 7 and 8. It is however safe to say that this is not where Swinburne has devoted the majority of his philosophical thinking, neither explicitly Christian or otherwise.

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earliest Christianity, like William Lane Craig and N.T. Wright. Likewise, many apologists considers the (purported) existence of objective morals a compelling evidence for the existence of God. As such, Swinburne's position is somewhat radical, also in the Christian apologetic tradition. He is however in accordance with the central point of classical

apologetics: The point of the discipline of apologists is that there is as such no truly inherent conflict between objective rationality and subjective faith, because true faith is not

subjective at all, but objectively true. Apologetics, or so it may seem, is really not that different, if different at all, from the standard natural sciences. It is all a question of

evidentialism, the more evidence, the stronger the claim. The less evidence, the weaker the claim.

2 Chapter 2 – Presenting thinkers and types of thinking

2.1 Kierkegaard's poetry and the sick soul

It is often somewhat difficult to ascertain Kierkegaard’s exact philosophical position, due to his complicated habit of frequently writing under various pseudonyms, which again seems to have been an intentional scheme on his part to create distance between his own person and his works.7 These various pseudonyms again occasionally attacked each other and the viewpoints they presented. It is thus exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to say with certainty which of them Kierkegaard himself supported, if any. And yet, it is through the pseudonyms that some of Kierkegaard’s most famous thoughts, ideas and expressions are presented. The pseudonyms are therefore important, though as Kierkegaard himself stated, they should not necessarily be viewed as his own opinions. In fact, one of the advantages of this heavy use of pseudonyms is that it becomes more difficult to ascertain what the author actually thinks himself. The reader must think him/herself.8 I will therefore note when I do quote or refer to one of Kierkegaard’s pseudonyms, and from which one. But apart from that, I will not spend time and space debating how much Kierkegaard agrees or disagrees with the particular pseudonym, unless I deem this absolutely necessary, that is to say if two viewpoints made by different pseudonyms seem to disagree with each other. It then follows that Kierkegaard must disagree with at least one of them and perhaps both. Nonetheless,

7 Eriksen, Den fromme spotteren (Finland: Forlaget Press, 2013), p. 47.

8 McKinnon, "Kierekgaard's pseudonyms", p. 116-117

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they are after all ultimately all authored by him; and are therefore he is responsible for them. Of Kierkegaard's extensive authorship, I shall in this paper contend myself with the following books: Filosofiske smuler, Avsluttende uvitenskapelige efterskrift and Frygt og

Bæven. I have also read the short essay Lilien paa marken og Fuglen under Himlen.

Of course, Kierkegaard often wrote under his own name as well, and that he made a

distinction between explicitly religious (though of course still of a quite philosophical nature) writings, which he signed with his own name, and the more philosophical (though by no means irreligious) texts, which he tended to sign with various pseudonyms. Kierkegaard himself distinguished by texts written by “his right hand and his left hand”, where the more religious texts typically were by written by his "right hand" and without pseudonyms, the more philosophical texts by his "left hand" and under pseudonyms.9 This also underscores which of the two he considered the most important. It is unlikely that he would appreciate the fact that his "left hand" made a far wider impact on the world than his "right one" did, but then again, no one has the right to determine his or her own legacy.

Finally, when referring to Kierkegaard and quoting his works, I have elected to stand by his original language, and written them in Danish. When reading him, I have overwhelmingly read the original source material, and it is of course always best to use the original source, when this is possible. Kierkegaardian quotes will therefore all be in Danish. Apart from this, the text in its entirety is in English; including, of course, my reflections and opinions on what Kierkegaard thinks.

Why faith?

As both Kierkegaard and Swinburne are Christians, it follows that they both consider religious faith to be empirically true; that is to say, that they think it originates from a true source: The existence of God, which it is possible for human beings to have a degree of interaction with. As Christian writers, they must also necessarily regard the experience of religious faith as something fundamentally positive: By faith in Jesus Christ, humanity may obtain a form of salvation. It is the reason for faith as such that interests me here though;

because the two thinkers’ different approaches towards how also leads to a different

9 Mjaaland, introduction in Kierkegaard, Liljen på marken og fuglen under himmelen (Verbum. Print Best Printing Company, Estland), p. 8

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approach towards why we should have religious faith. What problem is religious faith

supposed to solve, and/or what gap is it supposed to fill?

For Kierkegaard the answer for what faith ultimately is and means, is release from despair and anxiety, which normally haunts all humans, when faced as they are with the infiniteness of the world versus their own finite existences. The absence of God leaves the universe, and human existence, in such a terrible, excruciating maelstrom of meaninglessness that it becomes untenably bleak and meaningless for anyone that genuinely thinks about it for any meaningful length of time. It is worth mentioning that while Kierkegaard very much strives towards being as devout a Christian as he possibly can, his philosophy and writings do not concern themselves with the afterlife, and any mentioning of heaven or hell is next to non- existent. Kierkegaard’s Christianity is very much a faith that looks toward this life and this world.10 In the Kierkegaardian bibliography, there is a running theme that humanity has the freedom to themselves make their earthly existence a heaven or a hell, by turning towards or away from God. As would become more or less typical in later existentialism, both of the Christian and the atheist kind, the self is in Kierkegaard always free to define itself at any moment. This is however not only positive, because it also highlights the limitations of unbound freedom. You, the self, can never be still and can never stop choosing. A moment of perfect bliss and satisfaction can never last for more than a moment. This, combined with the mercilessness of time, means that anything we create, be it ourselves or in the world around us, is bound to change, any traces we leave behind will fade as time goes by. This knowledge is hard, perhaps unbearable for humans, and we suffer under it. Our only hope for lasting salvation, something beyond temporary reprieve, is in absolute obedience towards, and trust in, God. God represents what is truly infinite, yet never changing. He is the first and final source of everything, and therefore everything is contained within Him.

Human well-being therefore ultimately is preconditioned to depend upon Him. This person is The Religious Man (Det Religiøse Menneske), who live in a state of something akin to unity with God, and who has distanced himself from everything else, for nothing may be equal to God. That is not to say that Kierkegaard encourages us to separate ourselves from

10 It may very well be that as a so-called knight of faith, Kierkegaard’s ultimately hope and believes that he will in some way be reunited with his great love Regine Olsen, if not on earth so at least in heaven. But I do not think that this is ultimately important for his views of God and heaven, the reason which I hope to make clear further on in this paper.

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the mundane world, like some Christians have chosen, e.g. monasticism. Devotion towards God is something we always can have and always do, everywhere. We always, at least after having discovered Christianity, have the possibility and opportunity to become fully and truly religious, the choice is always there, for us to make. As I hope I have made clear by now, for Kierkegaard true religious faith is not an act of reason, but of passion. It is not science or logical calculations, but the ultimate form of love, from which true faith comes.

God is so all-encompassing and completely demanding that it does seem as if for

Kierkegaard, there can be room for nothing, or no one, else.

To be sure, the idea of illustrating the relationship between God and humans as that of lovers, is not something Kierkegaard has invented, but is an old Christian tradition hailing at least from the purported medieval notion of courtly love; the chaste yet passionate love between a knight and his beloved lady, where the lover becomes a substitute for God.11 It is also central to bridal mystique, where Christ is made into the groom, and the believer into the bride, and in the churchly tradition of referring to the church as the bride of Christ.12 It is also implicit in the superiority of the theological virtues: Faith, Hope and Charity, above the philosophical virtues Wisdom, Temperance, Justice and Courage. It is not clear-eyed

wisdom, but passionate devotion, that is the final goal and the key to salvation.

Faith as a stage in life

Kierkegaard in his writings famously differentiates between three ways of attempting to overcome the meaninglessness of despair. These are the aesthetical, the ethical and the

religious.13 The aesthetical stage is where humans try to free themselves from gloomy thoughts by

amusing, or at least entertaining, distractions. This has often been interpreted as stooping into nihilistic libertinism and hedonism, but that is not necessarily the case. The aesthetical concerns itself with beauty, joy and self-fulfilment, and this may or may not be immoral;

artists, musicians and writers, as well as lovers, diners and gamers may be said to operate within the aesthetical. The main characteristic they share is that they are engaged in

something that is supposed to give them pleasure to do. It is also self-centred; the pleasure is hedonistic and selfish. They are enjoying themselves, or at least they are supposed to.

11 Bonneuil, "Arrival of Courtly Love" , p. 265

12Kenda, Practicing passion (USA: Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company 2004), p. 124-126

13 This is an old division, which amongst others can be found in Plato's Republic: The life of desire, the life of duty and the life of wisdom.

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However, as all pleasures are temporal, and no activity is really that amusing for a long time, certainly not for eternity. The esthetical approach is doomed to fail. Soon enough boredom will set in, and through boredom despair, because the self will realize that the aesthetical cannot offer any meaningful and permanent distraction. From there, life and the universe

will feel meaningless and dull, and despair will return, with a vengeance.14 Moving on from the aesthetical stage, there is the ethical stage, where humans submit and

repress their personal urges and desires for something more worthwhile, a greater good.

This can be your family, your country, your career, your people, an ideology, the

environment or even mankind in general. Here, the individual devotes himself/herself to something that (they believe) is truly good and ethical. The ethical person serves others, and sacrifice on their behalf. Kierkegaard symbolises this stage with marriage. Marriage is built upon commitment, and a duty to love and care for another human being, not only yourself.

This is a higher stage, in part because it is more moral, but also because the individual becomes a part of something greater; it takes responsibility for something more than simply its own happiness and pleasure. Meaning and purpose become deeper, and the

ramifications of the individual's choices are grander. Kierkegaard agrees that this is more praiseworthy than the aesthetical life, but in the end the ethical life does not provide any lasting comforts either. Because also here the results and consequences of our choices are temporary, and they cannot offer us a stable and safe identity. For still the self, as the universe, is in constant motion, and it cannot sit still. In the end, no matter the amount sacrificed, or the amount built, nothing lasts forever. Everything we build will in the end come to nothing. This realization, whether subconscious or not, will cause despair also for the ethical human being.15 Presumably, there is amongst the ethical that Kierkegaard would place Swinburne and his type of apologetics. Swinburne's project is heartfelt enough, and aims to benefit humanity in general and Christians in particular, but due to its reliance on approximations, doubt and intellectual reservations, it is no better than more secular ideologies. Though Swinburne may think so, there is nothing eternal or genuinely steadfast about his thinking, and it will continue to evolve and change until it is forgotten or else

changed into something unrecognisable.

14 Craig, Reasonable Faith (Illinois, Good News Publishers, 2008), p. 69

15 Craig, Reasonable Faith (Illinois, Good News Publishers, 2008), p. 69-70

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Finally, we have the religious stage, though Kierkegaard does divide this into two parts:

Religiosity A and Religiosity B. The first group's religiosity is misguided, or at least

insufficient, the other's the path towards genuine faith and salvation.

Religiosity A is concerned with genuine devotion. It leads to a state where one genuinely wishes to follow God's will. And by personal effort and willpower, one hopes to reach God.

This is however not truly possible. We, as humans, cannot rise above our temporality to eternity and God. It is not possible, no matter how intensely we long for it or how hard we

try.

This brings us to religiosity B. God, unlike humans and their choices, is eternal and

unchanging. Any union between ourselves and Him is therefore impossible. And yet, God can make the impossible, and in Christianity, He has. This is the Paradox, manifest in Jesus, who proves that a humans may be fully reconciled with God. And those that manage to come into direct contact with him, will find God. Their choices will be God's choices, and therefore will always be the best possible choice to make. The (truly) religious human being will always make the right choice, and know that the choice is meaningful, and will know that through God also he or she will be eternal.16 This life will not be free of suffering, far from it, yet even so, those that walk with God will know that everything will in the end turn out for the best.

The Religious Man and faith in God as simply put a reduction of choices. This then becomes Kierkegaard’s life project – recognizing the individual human being’s gift of endless choices, endless possibilities, and then freeing us from them by reducing an infinite number of choices to two: Choosing or not choosing God. If, as it follows from Christian doctrine, God is omnipotent, omnibenevolent, omnitemporal and omniscient, God becomes the ultimate source of everything good. Electing to submit oneself to Him then means that one pledge one’s freedom to what is good, just, wise and eternal; to not choose God then ultimately becomes rejecting all of these, ensuring damnation in the form of eternal despair. God is the salvation, indeed, the only possible salvation, from despair.

Dersom det ingen evig Bevisthed var i et Menneske, dersom det til Grund for Alt kun laae en vildt gjærende Magt, der vridende sig i dunkle Lidenskaber frembragte Alt hvad der var stort og hvad var der ubetydeligt, dersom en bunløs Tomhed, aldrig mættet, skjulte sig under Alt,

16 Eriksen, Den fromme spotteren (Finland: Forlaget Press, 2013), p. 232-234

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hvad var da Livet Andet en Fortvivlelse? Dersom det forholdt sig saaledes, dersom det intet helligt Baand var, der sammenknyttede Menneskeheden [...] dersom en evig Gemsel altid hungrigd lurede paa sit Bytte, og der var ingen Magt stærk nok til at frarive den det – hvor

var da Livet tomt og trøsteløst!17 That does not mean that the choice is easy to make however, for not choosing God is both

easier and more rewarding, as in more fun, at first. This is the aesthetic path, where humans are content (or rather, try to be) with making pleasurable choices, trying their best to forget the underlying knowledge that the self, their own as well as anyone else's, is fleeting and constantly changing.

Considering that, we may see how and why Kierkegaard, both in his theology and

philosophy, puts such importance on the need of acting, not merely stating or saying. It is not sufficient to merely proclaim oneself a Christian, for such a statement on its own means next to nothing, as that is someone any human, or for that matter some machines and animals, can do. A parrot may say: “I am a Christian. Jesus Christ, to come into my heart.” It will of course not have any idea what that actually means, but neither will necessarily the human saying the same words do. They are after all in and of themselves just words. The statement, in and of itself is nothing more than hot air and does certainly not in and of itself require any further thoughts or actions. A close relationship with God cannot be established with the use of magic spells.

Neither is it sufficient to perform a certain set of learned rituals for salvation to take place.

That means that you do not become a true Christian by regularly attending church and knowing a particular set off prayers. The true connection to God is not a mathematical conundrum or trade-off, where such and such amount of time and energy set off to

devotion, equals salvation and a connection to God. In such a situation we are still trapped in despair, for the religion is treated as a role we do assume at Sunday pre-noon, before we go on with our normal life, forgetting all about God until next Sunday or until we want something specific from Him, e.g. a promotion, good weather or recovery from sickness.

This could hardly be further away from the all-encompassing and total devotion that is the only appropriate approach towards our almighty, everlasting and benevolent creator. If we are to have a meaningful relationship with Him, and a possibility to be freed from despair,

17 Kierkegaard, Frygt og Bæven (København: Gyldendal A/S, 2013), p. 112

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we must submit totally and unconditionally to His will. This is to be done, or at least as its starting point, by living a Christian life. This is not only to be done on Sunday, but every day, every hour, every waking moment. Internal doubts may still torment the individual, but they are to be combated by being ignored, not by engaging with them. This ultimately means that we must strive to merge our own will with His, so that every breath we take, every thought and movement, is Christian. Having gained true faith, there cannot be really be room for anything else, your very life becomes subservient to Him, and thus all your sorrows and worries are God's to deal with. By this submission, you shall gain the ultimate and only genuine freedom, for you are no longer haunted by despair or threatened by anxiety. God is infinite and eternal, and you reside in Him.18

2.2 Swinburne’s divine hypothesis

Compared to Kierkegaard's lofty and impassioned exultations, what can rationality and

Richard Swinburne even hope to counter with?

Soundness of argument is an obvious answer. Since the renaissance we have seen a tendency towards a universe that is better and better understood through science. While this process is far from complete, it likewise cannot be disputed that our quantity and quality of knowledge of universe itself and everything in it has increased tremendously since the end of the medieval era. If we presuppose that the universe is a creation, is it not then likely that we by gaining more knowledge about the universe have gained at least slightly more knowledge about its creator too? That this knowledge also has been beneficial to us, in the form of medicine, production, communication, transportation, democratisation, etc., seems undisputed. How much more do we not know even today than we did back in Søren Kierkegaard’s time? As Kierkegaard would no doubt reply, while this is true, it is also irrelevant in a theological context, because knowledge of God, if such a term can even be used, is not the same as knowledge of how measles is prevented, or how electric light is

operated. God is above and beyond reason. But is this explanation satisfying?

According to the Christian faith, God, in his unfathomable fullness, is beyond human understanding or descriptions, existing on another plane than us. And yet, God is not just the creator of us and our selves, but the creator of the universe and everything in it.

Likewise, everything operates according to God, either by his intervention, or at least by his

18 "Kierkegaard, Lilien paa Marken og Fuglen under Himlen", in Søren Kierkegaard Samlede Værker, s. 164-166

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express permission. Therefore, can we really treat the two, universe and God, as separate matters? Does not knowledge of the one influence how we perceive the other? If we assume that knowledge about the universe is a good thing, as both Swinburne and the vast majority of modern theistic philosophers does (Kierkegaard seems more neutral to me about this subject), is it not then both plausible and enlightening to try to learn about God, to gain a deeper understanding of who He is and why he operates the way that He does?

How is Christianity to respond when confronted with a universe, that apparently may work perfectly fine without an omnipresent, omniscient, omnibenevolent and omnipotent creator? Is faith to be relegated to only the most personal and intimate sphere, our own minds? If not, it seems to be necessary to explain why the universe, not only the human self, may still find room for God, or even better, make the case for why arguing for his objective existence and power is a rational endeavour, who can present rational and objective

arguments to justify itself. Swinburne’s philosophy, as in his important books The Coherence of Theism and Was Jesus God? must be read with this challenge in mind. To Swinburne then, the notion that faith and reason should be mutually exclusive is absurd, for one of the most basic components of well-founded faith must be that it can withstand sceptical scrutiny and criticism. If God cannot do so, he most obviously cannot be omnipotent, omniscient or omnibenevolent either. Second, this is necessary to defend faith from being what is disparagingly called a matter of “God between the gaps”, or faith that is being used to temporarily supplant reason and scientific explanation, and meanwhile, God and religious faith is driven from stronghold to stronghold, slowly but steadily losing ground, as science explains more and more of the naturalistic causes of what was previously attributed to God.

As such, Swinburne can be said to be more ambitious than Kierkegaard, who refuses to discuss whether God exist or not (though he does admit that being in doubt is a perfectly natural starting point, and that we, while striving to overcome it, should not try to deny its presence), Swinburne’s endeavour is to make faith philosophically sound. By certain and objective knowledge, what is uncertain and subjective may be legitimised by being proven to be reasonable and objective.

Swinburne is a personal Christian, proclaiming himself a believer in the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent and omnibenevolent God. He also believes that Jesus

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was both man and God19, that the Trinitarian doctrine is true20, and that Jesus was resurrected from the dead21, and he espouses and defends all of said doctrines in his philosophical works. Furthermore, he also considers himself to be a rational man, and that all of the above may be explained by the use of reason and logic. That is not to say that they are not miraculous occurrences. They are, but meticulous study of all the available facts, and rational considerations, may yet make them the most logical assumptions to make. We do here encounter a philosopher that approaches faith with the attitude that rational use of argumentation and logic may indicate that the assumption that God exists is the most plausible explanation for why the universe exist as it does, and that it is not implausible, and certainly not irrational, to believe that this God is the Christian one.22 It is perhaps

noteworthy that Swinburne argues the case for belief in God also by referring to

epistemological logic, natural sciences, natural philosophy and metaphysics23, fields of little interest in Kierkegaard’s religious philosophy.

Kierkegaard’s argument, if it can even be called that, for choosing to believe (and it is a choice, and not something reason or anything/anyone else can compel us to do) seems to rest exclusively on a psychological attitude: We should believe in God because that is the only genuine chance of escape from despair. Swinburne and other modern apologists on the other hand, do for example frequently discuss theories concerning the “fine-tuned”

universe, that is, the idea that the complexity of the universe, and the myriad of necessary conditions required to create life exists, strongly indicates a theistic, or at least deistic,

creation.24 This line of argumentation, proclaiming religious faith while insisting that it is perfectly

compatible with reasoning and rationality, is the hallmark of the tradition of Christian apologetics, hereby only referred to as apologetics. These are Christian philosophers that seeks to defend Christianity against objections based on reason-based scepticism and objections. While there is certainly a long tradition for this Christian discipline, beginning with Justin Martyr and Augustine of Hippo and even say Paul the apostle, there would be no exaggeration to say that the field has experienced something of a revival in the latter half of

19 Swinburne, Was Jesus God? (Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 26-7

20 Swinburne, Was Jesus God? (Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 28-34

21 Swinburne, Was Jesus God? (Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 114-116

22 Swinburne, Was Jesus God? (Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 5-6

23 Swinburne, The Coherence of Theism (UK: Oxford University Press, 2016), p.11-12

24 Swinburne, The Existence of God (United States: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 172-173

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the 20th century and into the 21th. The main reason for this seems obvious: Christianity, as religions in general, is on the defensive. It’s teachings and dogmas are under an intellectual scrutiny and level of attacks unprecedented in the religion’s history. This is a notable difference from the lifetime of Søren Kierkegaard, who lived in a society that considered itself to be deeply pious and close to uniformly Christian. While it certainly can be argued that this fact is not relevant from a purely philosophical point of view, it cannot be denied that the alliance between philosophy and theology that Swinburne attempts to create is influenced by this development.

2.3 Working towards God through reason

Many religious traditions extol the virtue of faith, and in the Christian tradition faith in God who has revealed himself in Christ is seen as a major virtue. You need it in order to travel the Christian road to Heaven. But what is it to have faith in God?25

While Swinburne is a philosopher of religion foremost, he is also a renowned philosopher of science, and his wish to take a scientific approach towards the defence of religious faith is evident in his approach towards apologetics.26 It should then not come as a surprise that his overall religious philosophy is marked by a strict adherence to analytic and methodical reasoning, where various books are being organized to cover various key concepts and specific subjects within theism in general and Christianity in particular. Swinburne's most famous works are his trilogy of books regarding the soundness of theism in general, and his teratology of the soundness of Christianity in particular. The trilogy on theism consists of The Coherence of Theism (1977), The Existence of God (1979) and Faith of Reason (1981).

The teratology of Christianity consists of Responsibility and Atonement (1989), Revelation (1991), The Christian God (1994) and Providence and the Problem of Evil (1998). In this paper, three books in particular will be used as sources, these three books are The

Coherence of Theism (originally published in 1977), Was Jesus God? (published in 2008) and Faith and Reason (originally published in 1981). These seven books are by no means the full extent of Swinburne's philosophical writings of course, nor even the full extent of his Christian writings, but they are considered his most important works27, and do describe Swinburne's preferred philosophical method, inspired by Thomas Aquinas: To start with the

25 Swinburne, Faith and Reason (Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 4

26 Swinburne, "Why Believe That There Is a God?", p. 5-11

27 Hasker, "Is Christianity Probable?", p. 253

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most basic foundation of Christianity, vague theism. In order for Christianity to be true, theism must also be true. And if we are to justifiably believe theism to be true, it must be

the most plausible proposition.

Therefore, in these seven books, Swinburne systematically considers and argues for, in the following order: the overwhelming probability of the validity of theism, that this theism is probably Christian, and that Christianity is practiced by beings (humans) that are in their essence eternal souls, and not simply material bodies. Of course, most importantly for this paper, that it is possible and good to understand this through the use of human reasoning.

The meticulousness and well-organized categorisation of the books, containing each their own specific topic, is typical of Swinburne's rigorous adherence to structured analytics, and a contrast to Kierkegaard's more free-flowing and, it must be said, chaotic authorship.

Swinburne argues like a scientist turned philosopher, while Kierkegaard is primarily a creative writer, who addresses his audience through language clad in poetry, myths and pathos. This is a conscious decision, a part of Kierkegaard's repudiation of the idea of

"objective" knowledge and standpoint.28 A coherent faith

By “theism” I understand the doctrine that there is a God in the sense of a being with most of the following properties: being a person without a body (that is, a spirit), present everywhere (that is, omnipresent), the creator of the universe, perfectly free, able to do anything (that is, omnipotent), knowing all things (that is, omniscient), perfectly good, a source of moral obligation, eternal, a necessary being, holy, and worthy of worship.29

Swinburne begins his philosophical undertaking by being as basic as possible: Arguing that theism is coherent. The Coherence of Theism is not a work of Christian apologetics.

Nonetheless it should be noted that its stated definition of theism is not universal or neutral, but rather the one adhered to by (the overwhelming majorities of) Jews, Christians and Muslims. The goal of the book then is to argue for the legitimacy of said theism, why it is coherent. Interestingly, Swinburne in this book does not try to defend the truthfulness of his theism as such, but to show that it is the most coherent, and as such, if theism is true, the most plausible version of it. This is done in three parts, the first third of the book, called

28 Mackey, "Philosophy and Poetry in Kierkegaard", p. 325-328

29 Swinburne, The Coherence of Theism (UK: Oxford University Press, 2016), p. 1

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“Religious Language”, is a discussion of what it really means when one talks of “logical possibility” and “metaphysical possibility”, and how this is to be applied when talking about theology. It is first in the second part where Swinburne, having clarified what he is actually talking about, starts to discuss what he set out to do in the introduction, explaining why his, and Christianity’s, version of theism is the best, why God must be omnipresent and why it probably is no more than one god, why he must be free, omnipotent, omniscient,

omnibenevolent, as well as eternal and immutable. Swinburne is careful in specifying what is meant by each of these concepts, his goal is all the time to be as accurate and logical as possible. In the last quarter of the book, Swinburne argues for why the theistic model he advocates indicates, or even insist, that God’s existence must be necessary, not merely “a lucky break”. Remember that God is the creator of everything, including the universe, but more than this, Swinburne argues that the existence of God itself is necessary. In the last chapter of the book, Swinburne argues that God is “Holy and Worthy of Worship”, which is to say that worshipping him is something we ought to do, both because it is good in itself and because it will do us good and that it is possible to establish some form of personal relationship with the deity. “All of this, if it happened, would deserve enormous gratitude.

But, while the worship of God (as depicted in theistic religions) involves great gratitude, there is more to worship than the expression of gratitude.”30

A reasonable faith

Many religious traditions extol the virtue of faith, and in the Christian tradition faith in God who has revealed himself in Christ is seen as a major virtue. You need it in order to travel the Christian road to Heaven. But what is it to have faith in God?31

In Faith and Reason Swinburne discuss and analyses how theistic faith is to coexist with reason, and how reason can be shown to lead to theism. Swinburne discuss what religious belief and faith is, and what role reason can and ought to play in them. It is notable that he distinguishes between belief and faith, as I myself have tried to do in this paper. Simply put, faith is a sum of a set or system of beliefs, that together forms coherent doctrine, where none of the individual beliefs gives us the whole system, but when put together still remains logically coherent. There can be beliefs without having faith, but there can be no faith

30 Swinburne, The Coherence of Theism (UK: Oxford University Press, 2016), p. 285

31 Swinburne, Faith and Reason (Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 4

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without beliefs. "Belief" as a concept is a considerably more general and vaguer term. Unlike

"faith" however, it may be distinctively and fairly uncontroversially based upon reason and reason alone. Our beliefs may be mistaken of course, but they are founded upon empirical experiences and logical propositions that may be proven or disproven. Faith is then not the same as belief, though there is certainly a large amount of belief within faith. Faith is perhaps best described as a set of beliefs, a system of beliefs that together encompass a distinctive world-view. It then becomes necessary to establish which beliefs are true, or at the very least the ones that are the most plausible. The only way to discover true beliefs, save divine revelations, are to judge them by their rationality. How plausible is it that our beliefs are true?32 It is not necessary to believe that some specific belief is probable in order to act according to it. It may exist among various alternative possible or even just plausible options. It then suffices that a specific belief may be deemed plausible, as in not very improbable, in order for it to be accepted as the most likely correct assumption. Sometimes the specific belief, in and of itself, may even seem less plausible than the alternatives, but is accepted because it is part of a larger belief system.

The question that then follows is this: How do we best assess which beliefs are the most plausible? There is only one way to do so, Swinburne thinks, and that is by rationality, which again is derived by logic. Swinburne establishes six stages of rationality, where the three first are basic and the latter three are based on them.33 These are as follows:

Rational act0 = The agent believes this to be the best action.

Rational act1 = The agent believes this to be the best action among the available

alternatives, given the probabilities based on the agent's own criteria and on her evidence of different actions attaining different goals, is it by the agent's own criteria the best or equally best action to do in the circumstances.

Rational act2 = The subject believes the action, given her evidence about what her

circumstances are and the correct (logical) probabilities based on the subjects' evidence of the different actions attaining different goals, is in fact the best action to do.

32 Swinburne, Faith and Reason (Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 231

33 Swinburne, Faith and Reason (Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 2005), p.79-82

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Rational act3 = The action is rational0 and the subject's beliefs are based on what she regards as an sufficient amount of investigation. The agent may fail to do action3 either because he fails to do action0 or because in her view, her investigation has been insufficient.

Rational act4 = The action is rational if it is based on rational act1 and the agent's beliefs are based on what is by the subject's own criteria a sufficient amount of investigation.

Rational act5 = The action is rational act2 and the agent's beliefs are based on what is by correct criteria a sufficient amount of investigation (into the probability of different actions attaining different goals and the relative goodness of alternative actions given her evidence about her circumstances.) Rational5 actions are the ideal actions, where we have the

strongest and most reasonable beliefs.

Having set out the criteria for how he considers something plausible, Swinburne proceeds to establish which religion he deems the most rational5. According to Swinburne "... to my knowledge neither the Catholic Church, nor the Orthodox Church, nor - I suspect any large Protestant Church has ever made any dogmatic pronouncements about the kind of belief which is involved in faith."34 In the last chapter of Faith and Reason, The Comparison of Creeds (p 231-263, 2005 edition) Swinburne sets out to establish some criteria by how to best deem which faith doctrine, Creed, is the most plausible. These are:

1) Assessing the probability of theism35

This is of course the beginning of any quest of religious nature, to determine if theism is more probable than non-theistic religions or atheism. If theism is a simple theory, its probability depends upon the evidence available; and of whether or not there are counter-evidence that are more compelling.

2) Comparing theistic religions36

If during first stage we find evidence that make theism at least somewhat probable, we must determine which theistic religion is the most probable. Swinburne contends himself with discussing the three "Abrahamic" religions37, who all agree that God is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent. They do however disagree on some of

34 Swinburne, Faith and Reason (Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 156-157

35 Swinburne, Faith and Reason (Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 232-233

36 Swinburne, Faith and Reason (Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 233-243

37 While these are by far not the only theistic religions that exist, it seems safe to assess that they are at present the most important theistic religions in a global perspective.

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the other aspects of His nature, and by how, why and for what He revealed Himself (though they all agree that He has revealed himself). The classical Christian must believe that Jesus was resurrected, something that Jews and Muslims deny.

3) Miracles38

If God does intervene in human history, actively changing its course, we must investigate the validity of miracles, for miracles, by their definition, defy natural laws. If it then is possible to argue that some event or phenomena probably was a miracle, the most likely explanation would be some kind of divine intervention.

Therefore, the theistic religion that best can defend the historical validity of its own central miracles, is the one with the strongest claim of divine intervention.

4) Evidence of the occurrence of miracles39

Swinburne address David Hume's famous criticism of belief in miracles. Miracles may or may not take place, but they are always the least probable explanation, simply because they do take place in violation of natural laws, which in itself is supposed to be impossible. Therefore, any alternative and natural explanation that can be thought of, is more plausible than that of the miracle. Swinburne rejects this as a secretly naturalistic description of what is meant by "natural". Any evidence for the existence of God, is also an argument for the possibility of something (God)

interfering and disturbing the course of nature. Without no god, the resurrection of Jesus is widely implausible. If on the other hand there exists a god with the power and the will to do such a thing, the resurrection, and miracles in general, at once becomes considerably more plausible.

5) Comparison of theistic and non-theistic religions40

It is also necessary to distinguish between theistic and non-theistic religions, for of course atheism is not the only alternative to theism. Swinburne argues that non- theistic religions have fewer and inferior answers to natural theology than does theistic ones. Buddhism, for example, does not offer any explanation for why there is a universe to begin with, for like atheists they deny that the universe has any

creator, but unlike atheists they insist that there exists a moral law engrained into

38 Swinburne, Faith and Reason (Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 243-248

39 Swinburne, Faith and Reason (Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 248-253

40 Swinburne, Faith and Reason (Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 254-255

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